Wagner’s Ring Cycle at Leeds Town Hall - review: An unqualified triumph for the departing Music Directior, Richard Farnes

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To see and hear all four substantial parts of Wagner’s Ring cycle in one week is a rare event, even at Covent Garden. But to see and hear them sung, played and performed at the extraordinary level reached by Opera North this summer is a very special musical experience indeed.

These are not concert performances with singers immobilised behind desks and scores. The singers have all memorised their parts, and a limited – sometimes too limited – version of the stage action is played out in front of the greatly enlarged orchestra. Without drowning out the voices, we hear directly the full beauty and grandeur of Wagner’s orchestra, under the assured and inspiring direction of Richard Farnes.

Many singers reprise the roles they took in the original stagings between 2011 and 2014. These include Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke’s brilliant Loge, Richard Roberts’s comical Mime, Jo Pohlheim’s resonant Alberich, and Mats Almgren as the giant Fafner and an outstandingly sinister and powerful Hagen. We saw three Wotans, all distinguished, with Bela Perencz the most imposing and sonorous. Mati Turi was convincing as a gullible Siegfried, and Kelly Cae Hogan was tirelessly powerful and eloquent as Brünnhilde. But above all this was an unqualified triumph for the departing Music Directior and great Wagner conductor, Richard Farnes.

Nottingham 6th – 11th June, Salford 13th – 18th June, London 28th June – 3rd July, Gateshead 5th – 10th July

http://www.theringcycle.co.uk